How One Plus One Equals 4
October 8, 2009 Posted by Tyler CruzThree weeks ago (God it’s scary how fast time flies) I published a post titled: To Merge, or Not to Merge: That is the Question in which I weighed the pros and cons of merging two different forums I owned.
46 comments were left, mostly of completely different opinion and suggestions. It was a very difficult decision for me to make, but in the end I decided to go for it. I felt that the benefits outweighed the negatives and sometimes you just have to take a risk.
Below is a 15-minute screencast I made showing the results of the merge, several days after I had finishing merging MovieForums.org with Movie-Vault.com Forums. I’m sure you’ll find the results quite interesting.
I also give a brief update at the end of the video as to how my affiliate marketing campaigns are going.
If you own a forum (or forums), I’m sure you’ll find the above video interesting. It makes me want to buy forums and merge them with my other sites. But merging two communities should always be thought out carefully, like I did in my To Merge, or Not to Merge: That is the Question post, as it could just as easily go the other way, so it’s a carefully calculated risk you must take and prepare for.
The new forum looks pretty cool. You did a good job Tyler. Greg Ellison
Interesting, I thought it was bad to merge.. but it looks good Tyler
Don’t forget that there is a shock and Awe factor in play here.
When you make a change to a website, there tends to be a Big boost, but then it dies back down.
It may or may not happen with your forums. I just hate being disappointed that when i make changes they don’t lasting impact.
As for the affiliate marketing, oct nov dec. tend to be my best months.
Keep Up the Great Work!
Brad’s right, it’s almost entirely because of the commotion caused. There’s really nothing going on here.
I agree. It’ll be interesting to see if the traffic keeps up over the next month.
Congrats on merging your two forums together. While there may be an initial boost due to the sudden change, I think it would have a positive long term effect. All of your forum members suddenly have more people to talk to and more threads to read. Bringing the two communities together should create a much stronger community.
Well I think I’m as smart as Andrew because brad is right.It’s all pretty much a commotion.
Nice post Tyler. Good luck getting M-V back to the top where it once was.
-Ryan
Sorry, but I cannot stand the dark & depressing M-V design. Why can’t you make it a bit lighter? Something like http://canmag.com/ or rottentomatoes.com.
I agree that the current movie vault forum layout is pretty bad. Hopefully with the update of the site it’ll be better.
How much did you end up making last month profit from your affiliate campaigns at PeerFly?
I guess you’ll find out soon enough, eh? 😉
I think Tyler will keep it as his secret for this moment haha. 😀
Tyler, you have a cool logo at the top banner! Who did you kill? lol!
It seems like you made the right move.
awesome tyler .. you have did a great job.. i believe you are one of not too much most successful blogger in the world.
Hey Tyler,
Congrats! Its definitely looking good so far! I wasn’t 100% sure for idea of merge somewhere. But I am really enthusiastic with kinda happening stuff. I am glad you could make it work.
wow! results are skyrocketing! that’s really amazing to think that it doubles, tripples, and quadroples in one night only!
I wonder if it happens on blogs…uhmm?
Both of your forums look cool Tyler! But too bad that I don’t have a forum yet as I think forum does need a few friends to work together to get it bigger since the competition is so strong.
Anyway, you have nice forum over there Tyler!
You might be right. To create a successful forum, you need to create a buzz and you need to find some new members to help build up your posts. It seems like a tedious job.
Hi,
I had hard time finding the link to the forum on movie vault. Its not visible. Because of that is the reason you got low new posts per day
Nice work Tyler! I’ll be interested in seeing if you continue to get that much growth on the forum over the next few months. Keep making these kind of posts! I love them.
So far it looks like the merger did work after all, I can certainly see after watching video as to why the overall talks would increase, it’s almost like activity increase exponentially with more members =D
Till then,
Jean
“I can’t remember what I said before…” lol
Great video though Tyler, interesting to see the results of the merge… risky though, glad to see you went through with it
As long as the 2 types of forums are somewhat related or compliments, I think its a good idea to do.
-Jack
Results of the merge look pretty good. Will be interesting to see if the increased activity continues.
Whoops, should be “complements”, not compliments.
I must say I was against the merger, because I thought you could use the forum with the high search engine ranking to drive traffic to your other forum without the risk of losing your high rankings in google. But If it is a success then I am very happy for you.
Never had a chance to use a vbulletin forum but have used IPB and phbb panel many times..
Let’s see how this merger helps in coming future.
Merging forums sounds like a good idea but i assume it can be tough.
Good job with the new forum. Looks very good
Great video though Tyler your the best, interesting to see the results of the merge risky though, glad to see you went through with it
Network Marketing
merging forums is also risky, but anyway goodluck, i think it should not have an negative effects
Congrats! Its definitely looking good so far!
Don’t forget that there is a shock and Awe factor in play here.
When you make a change to a website, there tends to be a Big boost, but then it dies back down.
It may or may not happen with your forums. I just hate being disappointed that when i make changes they don’t lasting impact.
l like this information. thank you so much
You made a smart move. It is always good to take risks at times as a business man or woman. Without risking you might end up missing out on great things like this. Wonderful; post.